Dont think my scanner is hitting all channels

Status
Not open for further replies.

Fidpal

Member
Joined
May 17, 2017
Messages
17
I am trying to get state police to come up on my scanner, local towns come in fine and the scanner says its scanning state but i NEVER hear anything.

In the Sentinal App, there are 2 selections for MA State police.

Select Massachusetts, any county, then statewide, you will see 2 listings:

"State Police"
"Massachusetts State Police"


The "State Police" option only has a few options (and these are the ones my scanner seems to be looping through when i watch the screen)
- 800Mhz
- LowBand
- Troop B

The "Massachusetts State Police" has many more listings (here are a few, there are alot of trash ones in here that are not really state police not sure whats up with that):

- State Police Troop A - North Greater Boston
- State Police Troop B - Western
- State Police Troop C - Central

My scanner does not seem to want to scan these channels, do i need to tweak some settings or something?

Page for my state:
https://www.radioreference.com/apps/db/?aid=1822
 

ecps92

Member
Joined
Jul 8, 2002
Messages
14,360
Location
Taxachusetts
In addition to Bobs question of what scanner...

Where are you ?? Be Specific, Massachusetts is a large state and has many different MSP 700/800 Mhz Sites/Zones and you should attempt to program for the closest site.

https://www.radioreference.com/apps/db/?sid=736
https://www.radioreference.com/apps/db/?sid=7127

I am trying to get state police to come up on my scanner, local towns come in fine and the scanner says its scanning state but i NEVER hear anything.

In the Sentinal App, there are 2 selections for MA State police.

Select Massachusetts, any county, then statewide, you will see 2 listings:

"State Police"
"Massachusetts State Police"


The "State Police" option only has a few options (and these are the ones my scanner seems to be looping through when i watch the screen)
- 800Mhz
- LowBand
- Troop B

The "Massachusetts State Police" has many more listings (here are a few, there are alot of trash ones in here that are not really state police not sure whats up with that):

- State Police Troop A - North Greater Boston
- State Police Troop B - Western
- State Police Troop C - Central

My scanner does not seem to want to scan these channels, do i need to tweak some settings or something?

Page for my state:
https://www.radioreference.com/apps/db/?aid=1822
 

Fidpal

Member
Joined
May 17, 2017
Messages
17
Why do some of these systems have a ton of other things listed under them which are not police? I tried to only pick the ones that were clearly listed as state police.
 

Fidpal

Member
Joined
May 17, 2017
Messages
17
In addition to Bobs question of what scanner...

Where are you ?? Be Specific, Massachusetts is a large state and has many different MSP 700/800 Mhz Sites/Zones and you should attempt to program for the closest site.

https://www.radioreference.com/apps/db/?sid=736
https://www.radioreference.com/apps/db/?sid=7127


I travel so i want to program all of them in. Do i need to do something special for the state police becuase its a trunk system? I thought i just select the groups in sentinel and then upload to the scanner.
 

ecps92

Member
Joined
Jul 8, 2002
Messages
14,360
Location
Taxachusetts
Because the 700/800 TRS belongs to the Commonwealth, and other agencies do use and have access to it. IT has not been a True MSP Only system for many years now

You still have not answered our question, Primarily from where will you be monitoring.
Many Freqs get re-used, you need to select the nearest tower/site/zone

Why do some of these systems have a ton of other things listed under them which are not police? I tried to only pick the ones that were clearly listed as state police.
 
Last edited:

phask

Member
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Dec 19, 2002
Messages
3,670
Location
KZZV - SE Ohio
Do you understand how statewide trunked systems work? Not being sarcastic - just one needs a basic understanding of trucking.

Mass seems even more complicated - looks like there may be 2 systems in the same area.

Statewide - are you using a GPS?
 

Fidpal

Member
Joined
May 17, 2017
Messages
17
No GPS... i think i see the errors of my ways. Under the "Massachusetts State Police" option in Sentinal, if you scroll all the way down to the last few in that list and select them ("Mount Tom" for example) you will notice that ONLY lists some frequency numbers. If you click on "State Police Troop B - Western" this just lists a bunch of talk groups and has no frequency.

I had only selected the talk groups to add to my favorites list, i kept wondering why it was pulling a ton of other random named stuff in but i think those are the broadcast points for the frequency.

I think the way this works in there are several Trunk systems that run the frequency, and then all the guys use their own "talk group" on the frequency, Am i close? Sorry i am a newbie with all this stuff,.
 

Fidpal

Member
Joined
May 17, 2017
Messages
17
Because the 700/800 TRS belongs to the Commonwealth, and other agencies do use and have access to it. IT has not been a True MSP Only system for many years now

You still have not answered our question, Primarily from where will you be monitoring.
Many Freqs get re-used, you need to select the nearest tower/site/zone

Why cant i just load up all the broadcast towers and let the scanner figure out which one is closest? Can i only load one broadcast frequency at a time?
 

jonwienke

More Info Coming Soon!
Joined
Jul 18, 2014
Messages
13,416
Location
VA
Your questions show you do not understand how trunked systems work.

Large statewide systems can be used by dozens of agencies; state, county, and city police, fire, and EMS, public works, national guard, and many others.

You need to tell your scanner where you are, either by connecting a GPS or entering a ZIP code, so that it can identify which system sites are near enough to your location to scan. You do NOT want to scan all sites, because the majority of them will be too far away to be received, and the scanner will waste most of its time scanning for scanning sites it cannot hear.

There is no correlation between a frequency and a talkgroup. Any talkgroup can be broadcast on any frequency from any site, depending on how the system is configured and how busy it is. You will NOT see the scanner cycle through all talkgroups on a trunked system. It listens to the control channel(s) on each site within range, and when a talkgroup ID for a transmission is broadcast, it looks up that ID in the database to display the talkgroup info. The scanner can monitor thousands of talkgroups simply by listening to one control channel frequency.
 

Fidpal

Member
Joined
May 17, 2017
Messages
17
Thanks for explaining that and not tearing me to shreads guys. Looks like I need a gps for the road and can just punch in a zip code when stationary.

I had pretty good luck on my trip yesterday and was picking stuff up all down the highway even though I did not give a location and had the scanner watch all broadcast points instead of the closest one.

Any suggestion on a gps (and I guess antenna while I am at it) to install in my truck ? I mostly tune into 800mhz channels and they also use 'low band' with signals in the 40's.
 

Fidpal

Member
Joined
May 17, 2017
Messages
17
I also want to clarify what my issue was so if other people run into the same problem they know what it is.

In the Sentinel app if you select something that is a trunked system and expand the listing, you will notice that there are "Departments" and "Sites". The "Sites" will only list a frequency when you select them, the "Departments" will show talk group ID and a bunch of other stuff.

If you try to add a single department, Sentinel is smart enough to also pull over all the "Sites" which are the broadcast points for that system. I saw a bunch of random names get added to my favorites list (the names of the broadcast sites) and was like "WTF, i dont want all these random towns" so i stupidly deleted them. This meant the scanner did not have any broadcast points to scan to look for those talk groups i wanted to listen in on!!!

So when Sentinel pulls in a bunch of seemingly random places, they are likely sites and you WANT those to be imported, otherwise you will not be able to scan all the talk groups on that system. I still had to do a little bit of cleanup to remove some EMS and FIRE that was using the shared system but nothing bad.

Hope this helps out someone.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top